Over the past two decades, we have grown accustomed to describing pandemics and biological emergencies as “once-in-a-generation” events. That framing no longer holds. What we are facing is not a sequence of rare shocks, but a structural shift in risk—one driven by climate disruption, ecological pressure, global mobility, and the accelerating convergence of artificial intelligence with the life sciences.

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On Saturday, the Rhode Island Department of Health confirmed the state’s first measles case of 2026. The state’s last confirmed measles case was in January 2025 — the first since 2013.

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Hegseth says U.S. military no longer requires flu vaccination, drawing criticism from health experts

The decision to no longer enforce mandatory annual flu shots for military personnel could mean more troops will get sick during flu season, one expert says
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Vaccination is one of the most successful global health interventions in history, eradicating or eliminating some of the deadliest diseases through decades of coordinated effort. But that success is increasingly under pressure. Trust in vaccines has declined globally, fueled by the proliferation of misinformation and growing politicization of public health, making rising vaccine hesitancy one of the defining global health threats today.

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President Donald Trump nominated former Deputy Surgeon General Erica Schwartz, a physician, as director of the Centers for ​Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Schwartz is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who served as a deputy surgeon general during the COVID-19 pandemic in Trump's first term. Schwartz played a key role in the nation's COVID response, helping coordinate national preparedness during the first year of the pandemic.
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From a once-in-a-century global pandemic, to wars in Europe and the Middle East, to the unchecked rise of AI and social media technologies, we are living in an age of threats against humanity that are profound, fast-moving, and interconnected.

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In this episode of Saving the World from Bad Ideas, Mark Lynas speaks with Dr Seth Berkley, infectious disease epidemiologist, former CEO of Gavi, and co-founder of COVAX, about what the world got right and wrong during COVID-19.

They discuss vaccine equity, pandemic preparedness, the politicisation of public health, and why the world remains dangerously vulnerable to future outbreaks. From the rapid development of mRNA vaccines to the rise of vaccine disinformation and the growing threat of H5N1 bird flu, this conversation is a sobering reminder that pandemics do not end just because societies stop wanting to talk about them.

In the afternoon on Friday, March 27, Georgetown University’s Medical and Dental Building turned into a site of organized chaos as an unknown infection struck. Dozens of people hustled through the hallways, trying to earn enough money to buy food and stay healthy. Public health staffers tried their best to execute their roles, some with little prior experience, the atmosphere creating a trial by fire. Government instructions were scant, and media reports were often conflicting. It was a palpable frenzy of activity and cooperation.
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Dr Seth Berkley is an epidemiologist and global health leader whose career has been shaped by one central problem: vaccines save lives, but only if people can actually get them.

His 40-year career has spanned the global, from helping to build Uganda’s first HIV surveillance system and founding the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative; to leading Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for more than a decade – overseeing the immunisation of hundreds of millions of children worldwide. And when COVID-19 struck, Seth co-founded COVAX, the global initiative designed to stop wealthy nations monopolising vaccines.

In conversation with Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Seth discusses the highs and lows of his globe-trotting career - from saving millions of young lives through vaccine distribution, to setting his own shattered leg after a climbing accident in Namibia - and addresses the huge challenge of tackling vaccine scepticism.

While the School of Public Health was not officially founded until 2013, public health has remained a pertinent topic since the University’s founding. On Monday, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Faculty Fellow in University History William Goedel PhD’20 hosted a talk on the longer evolution of public health at the University, starting primarily in the 1800s.

At first glance, newly released data on immunization rates among children in Massachusetts seem to validate the efforts by state officials to lead a national resistance to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s antivax ideology.

And indeed, overall vaccination rates this school year held firm, according to the Department of Public Health, itself an accomplishment at a time when the federal government is aggressively trying to reverse decades of time-tested immunization policy.

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The United States declared victory in the fight against measles in 2000, saying the once common and deadly illness had been eliminated. But that could be changing, as measles makes an unwelcome global comeback. Canada already lost its measles-elimination status last year, and now the United States and Mexico—where cases have climbed into the thousands—face a similar fate.

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Experts warn that communities underestimate measles’ danger

A sharp rise in U.S. measles cases is linked to falling MMR vaccination rates and growing immunity gaps

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Respiratory syncytial virus is continuing to spread later into the spring than usual, driving most states to extend the window for RSV immunizations for eligible infants and toddlers.

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The CDC has paused diagnostic testing for more than two dozen infectious diseases —including rabies and pox viruses — according to the agency’s website.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon told Healio that the pause is temporary while the CDC “evaluates these assays as part of our routine review to uphold our commitment to high-quality laboratory testing.”

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The largest measles outbreak in the United States seems to be winding down. The South Carolina Department of Public Health says the state has now gone two full weeks without a new infection. Also, no one in the state is in quarantine or isolation for measles at this time, according to Brannon Traxler, MD, MPH, South Carolina’s chief medical officer.

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Flu and Covid, including a new variant called BA.3.2, nicknamed “cicada,” are still circulating, along with several other respiratory illnesses and a nasty stomach bug that are leaving many Americans feeling cruddy.

The symptoms for most of the viruses are so similar — sniffles, cough, muscle aches, fever — that doctors say you really can’t tell what you’ve got without a test.

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The School of Public Health’s Pandemic Center received a $900,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to launch a program for mid-career professionals in Africa designed to provide specialized training on biological threat reduction policy. The three-year initiative is set to launch in summer 2026 and will include a 9–10-week online course and a yearlong fellowship.

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This hour, we look at the spread of measles in the United States. And we talk to health and science communicators who are working to tell the story of that disease in new ways.

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Ahead of the World Cup, state health leaders say they are relying on a playbook they’ve used many times before, for blizzards, holiday celebrations, championship games, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Boston Marathon bombing.

Yet the World Cup dwarfs virtually any other event hosted in the region in decades, spanning 16 North American cities over five weeks and drawing an estimated 2 million fans to Greater Boston. Players and ticket-holders will ricochet across not just the region, but the country.

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Measles cases continue to rise – this is worrying. The good news is that there is a super effective vaccine that protects you and your loved ones.

Note – we use data from both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Brown University Pandemic Center’s weekly tracking report. While the CDC tracks confirmed cases only, the Pandemic Center tracks both probable and confirmed cases using publicly available data from state health departments. (Numbers below are correct as of March 13, 2026).

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Americans’ trust in federal vaccine recommendations declines markedly under Trump

One in three Americans trust childhood vaccine guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics more than the CDC’s recommendations, a new poll finds

Just six in 10 Americans trust the federal government’s childhood vaccine recommendations, a new poll finds. That marks a notable drop from June 2025, when 71 percent of poll respondents said they trusted the government’s vaccine guidance. The greatest decline was among Democrats—from 81 percent to 66 percent—although Republicans’ and Independents’ trust also waned.
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In March 2020, the World Health Organization’s director-general declared COVID-19 a pandemic, saying the agency was “deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.” Since the virus emerged six years ago, the disease has taken the lives of more than 7 million people, according to data tracked by KFF, a health research organization. COVID infections have left hundreds of millions of people with long COVID, a complex and chronic condition.

“We’re going to have more pandemics,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, noting that data shows that the chances of future pandemics and the frequency with which they could occur are increasing.

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Recently, the Trump administration offered $20 billion to provide re-insurance coverage for vessels sailing through the Strait of Hormuz amid conflict in the Middle East. Yet, closer to home, there is an immediate public health threat posed by the resurgence of measles, a serious disease once under control that needs federal support.

Measles outbreaks are a medical and systems issue, emerging from vaccination behavior, public trust, health policy and the capacity of the public health infrastructure to handle increasing demands. One can rightfully ask whether the idea of federal support for emergency economic issues should also apply to the costs associated with measles.
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In the three decades between 1993 and 2024, measles in the U.S. was relatively rare – a few hundred cases each year, at most. But suddenly, the disease has become so entrenched in American life that it sometimes fails to make headlines when a new outbreak erupts.

As of March 2026, measles has been continuously circulating around the U.S. for more than a year, starting with an outbreak in Texas that lasted from January to August 2025. Before that outbreak was declared over, an outbreak on the Utah and Arizona border began in August and is ongoing. An outbreak in South Carolina began in September, drastically increased in January 2026, and continues.

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South Plains, Texas, had long declared its measles outbreak over when in January wastewater testing picked up what Zachary Holbrooks called “a blip, a spike.”

The testing found measles after months without traces of the virus, which by the 2025 West Texas outbreak’s end infected over 750 people, hospitalized nearly a hundred, and two children died.

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In the year that US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been in office, his agency has made unprecedented changes to the childhood immunization schedule, removing universal recommendations for a half-dozen vaccines in favor of “shared clinical decisionmaking.”

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Measles outbreak erupts in one of U.S.’s largest ICE detention centers

Camp East Montana, one of the largest immigration detention facilities in the U.S., has reported 14 confirmed measles infections, triggering the El Paso center to close to visitors

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Experts say that the Trump administration has failed to take obvious steps to contain the spread of measles, which is continuing to accelerate in the United States as the number of cases has climbed past 1,000.

The administration has revealed a relaxed attitude toward the highly contagious virus both in terms of messaging and funding allocation, experts said.
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Heard about a lot of people getting flu this winter but not much about covid?


It’s not just you. For the second winter in a row, the United States has faced a punishing flu season, with covid as a more muted threat.

Early in the covid pandemic, coronavirus proved far more transmissible and deadly as it ripped through the world than the flu typically was. Flu was almost nonexistent that first pandemic winter in 2020-2021.

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When we gather indoors and exhale CO2, levels can rapidly rise and impair our cognitive function, even at levels that are pretty typical for indoor buildings in the US. But solutions are surprisingly cheap and easy! Today I'm joined by Dr. Georgia Lagoudas PhD, MIT grad and Senior Fellow and faculty at Brown University’s School of Public Health, where she brings extensive expertise in biosecurity and indoor air quality. She leads the at Brown, advancing policy and implementation projects to improve indoor air quality.

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Beginning fall 2026, in-person master’s students in the School of Public Health will matriculate under a newly designed curriculum that has been structured to provide greater flexibility.

The goal is for students to graduate equipped with more hands-on skills and greater knowledge of how to apply their education to their chosen professions, said Associate Director of the Accelerated Master of Public Health Program and Associate Dean for Education in the SPH Scott Rivkees, who spearheaded the curriculum’s restructure.

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The US government has amplified anti-vaccine rhetoric and signaled that it does not consider measles to be a priority, which could have global ramifications as countries around the world have lost or are on the brink of losing measles elimination status.
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The “land of the free” is almost no longer free of measles, with the US all but certain to lose its elimination certification for the disease after a surge of new infections in January.

Outbreaks of measles, one of the world’s most contagious infections, have now been occurring in the US for more than 12 months, and experts say the outbreaks seem to be linked, a key criterion for stripping a country of its measles-free status.

For the past week, about 50 flu scientists from around the world have been cramming into a conference room at a Hilton hotel in Istanbul, Turkey.

Their goal is to design a flu shot that will confer the best protection for the next flu season —starting in the fall of 2026. Each day, they pore over reams of data — about how the virus is evolving worldwide, how well last year's shot performed, and which strains might be easiest to mass produce for a vaccine.

For the past month, several inches of snow have consistently coated the ground in Providence and areas across the state. With grass buried and ponds frozen solid, birds that rely on the food sources these ecosystems provide have not been able to find sustenance.

And because of these treacherous conditions, Rhode Island’s wildlife rehabilitation clinics are reporting record numbers of sick and injured birds.

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At around 2 a.m., 7-year-old twin brothers arrived at Mission Hospital in Asheville. Both had a fever, a cough, a rash, pink eye, and cold symptoms.

The boys sat in one waiting room and then another. Two hours and 20 minutes passed before the two were isolated, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services records obtained by KFF Health News. Then two more hours ticked by.

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Two weeks ago, we were humbled by the conversations that followed our first issue. So many people are out there tracking these policies and their implications in depth—researchers, advocates, clinicians—and we’re blown away by what we’re finding. The public health response to what’s unfolding has been remarkable: states moving fast, medical organizations holding the line, legal teams working around the clock, communicators finding creative ways to reach people. We’ll be linking to as much of it as we can throughout this piece, because part of what we want this series to be is a jumping-off point, connecting you to the people on the ground doing this work and the resources they are creating.

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The United States has supported the World Health Organization (WHO) since its inception, playing a central role in its 1948 creation because it ultimately served American interests, despite the entity’s well-known flaws. Heavily influenced by the post-war notion that universalism was the best corrective to yet another devastating global conflict, 20th century leaders in the U.S. understood that improving global health and containing emergencies were desirable outcomes in and of themselves and would directly reduce health threats to Americans. At the time, the U.S. also recognized that building and maintaining an effective global health infrastructure was beyond its lone capacity. Because no one could predict where new infections would emerge, the world required a truly global surveillance and response system. Through WHO, the U.S. leveraged funding sources far beyond its own substantial monetary contributions and granted U.S. experts access to countries otherwise hostile to American initiatives. U.S. withdrawal from the organization on 22 January 2026 and from other international health partnerships, such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance—which I led from 2011 to 2023—makes achieving America’s interests more difficult, especially as the current administration dismantles much of the country’s other public health infrastructure.

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(TNND) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is refusing to review Moderna’s application for approval of an mRNA-based flu vaccine, the latest step taken by the administration that might chill the use of the technology that was key to the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.

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The Trump administration recently declared prenatal acetaminophen (paracetamol) exposure a cause of autism, misrepresenting scientific consensus and receiving swift criticism from experts and medical organizations. The administration’s choice to single out acetaminophen was surprising given the available data: several carefully designed studies, using large sibling cohorts from Norway, Sweden, and Japan, have investigated and disputed a potential acetaminophen-autism link.

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A measles outbreak in Collier County has reached 12 confirmed cases.

This outbreak joins ones already existing and growing in Texas and South Carolina with hundreds of cases. Those outbreaks are a threat to the United States keeping its measles-free status.

Starting Jan. 29, measles cases began showing up at Ave Maria University.

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Dozens of routinely updated CDC databases have gone quiet. Here’s what states and medical societies are doing to preserve U.S. public health.

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As measles cases continue to rise, the United States is at risk of losing its measles elimination status.

According to a spokesperson from the Pan American Health Organization, which will oversee the review of the United State’s measles elimination status on April 13, the “reestablishment of endemic transmission would be defined as a continuous chain of transmission lasting through or beyond” Jan. 20.

The Herald spoke to experts at Brown to better understand measles, its potential threats and the possibility of the United States losing its elimination status.

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The promise and perils of artificial intelligence (AI) are perhaps most starkly demonstrated in the worlds of healthcare and biomedical sciences. In these fields, striking the right balance between innovation and regulation is quite literally a matter of life and death. As scientists, policymakers, and practitioners around the world contemplate using AI to support research, transform the delivery of care, and protect us from the next pandemic, they must also contend with the potential of this technology to compromise privacy, curtail freedoms, and even create new biological threats.

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ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. RAMBLED THROUGH a long list of topics when he spoke at the White House during Thursday’s cabinet meeting.

He talked about dietary guidelines and rural health care. Prescription drugs and medical research. He even mentioned hospital price transparency, which is one of the more obscure parts of his portfolio as secretary of health and human services.

But there was one subject Kennedy skipped, in an omission as disturbing as it was conspicuous. He didn’t say a word about the measles outbreak in South Carolina, which is the nation’s biggest in decades.

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